iPhone App Review: Phoenix Wright

June 10, 2010 - By Tom Edwards

I’m surprised that the “courtroom/lawyer simulation” genre is so small. After all, courtroom dramas are usually some of the highest rated and most memorable television shows, from the Law & Order series all the way back to Perry Mason. Classics like To Kill A Mockingbird and Twelve Angry Men are based around courtroom settings. However, those looking to recreate the courtroom experience were hard pressed to find a game to satisfy that desire.

This explains some of the popularity of the Ace Attorney series by Capcom. The original title from the series, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, was released exclusively in Japan for the Game Boy Advance back in 2001 and has since been re-released for the Nintendo DS (in 2005), received an American release, and produced four sequels and spinoffs. The series is very successful in Japan, and demand for it in the United States has caused the Ace Attorney games to be difficult to find at times. Recently, Capcom has released the first game from the series, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, for the iPhone.

This guy's a winner.

The game is episodic, with five separate cases to be “won”, only the first of which is playable on game start (the following episode is unlocked upon winning the previous case.) Dialogue screens introduce you to the backstory and guide you along the way. Occasionally the player is presented with a decision screen with several choices to pick from, with each choice taking the story in a different direction. Outside the courtroom, the player can run into witnesses and potentially find clues and evidence. This is done using a cross-shaped interface that can allow the player to move to another location, talk to a person (if one is present), show a person a clue/piece of evidence, or examine the location. The interface is simple, although the “examine” function can be a little hard to navigate. When a user picks the examine function, they are offered crosshairs to drag around and aim at the location to examine closer. When you’re working with half an iPhone screen, it can be hard to get the crosshairs exactly where you want them, especially if you don’t have dainty skinny fingers.

HADOUKEN... I mean OBJECTION!

While inside the courtroom, you hear testimony from witnesses, and are given the opportunity to cross-examine them. This is where the true gameplay comes in. The witness testimony is replayed, during which you have the opportunity to either “press” the witness (use intimidation, e.g. “Did you REALLY see my client?”) or to present evidence to the witness. Presenting the evidence is where the case is going to be won (what – did you expect them to confess because you asked them to?) but also comes at a risk. During cross-examination, five exclamation points appear in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. They act as sort of a “life meter”. In order to keep the player from just blindly showing every witness their entire inventory, if the player presents evidence that doesn’t apply to the witness, the judge scolds you and you lose an exclamation point. Lose all five, and it’s game over.

Appropriate Lawyer Attire in Japan > Appropriate Lawyer Attire in US

The story is a little goofy at times, and the fact that it was originally a Japanese game is evident in the game’s style. The anime feeling is there, from unnecessarily hot boss to evil rival lawyer who looks like a vampire to your own spiky-haired main character. Also, the game uses the Japanese court system as a basis, which doesn’t (or at least didn’t when the game was originally released) use a jury and leaves the court’s decision to the judge. However, this doesn’t really affect gameplay much. The player is given three game days to prove his client innocent, and the work involved in finding the clues and solving the puzzles provides a game that won’t be solved immediately.

FTW: Deep lengthy gameplay, challenging, underutilized game genre

WTF: Some controls difficult to navigate, inability to speed up dialogue, a tad goofy, no change from 2005 Nintendo DS version

FINAL VERDICT: If you are a fan of the courtroom drama genre and you’re not turned off by the Japanese anime flavor of the game, I recommend picking this up. It is quick to learn (and the first two cases lead you through things, although I’d stop short to call them tutorials) and really a lot of fun. It’s a hearty download however, at 223.1 MB, so if you’re strapped for space, that may be a concern. At $4.99, a full port of a Nintendo DS game isn’t a bad deal at all, however if you already have the Nintendo DS version, there isn’t any need to pick up the iPhone version which is a direct port.

You can download Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney from the Apple iTunes Store.